Urgent action needed to avoid ‘lost generation’, says the former Labour health secretary’s report, due on Thursday
Britain risks a 25% rise in the number of young people not in work or education to 1.25 million by the early 2030s without urgent government action to avoid a “lost generation”, a landmark report has warned.
Alan Milburn, the leader of the review into why so many young people are economically inactive, said the UK risked opening up a “generational fault line” between young and old without urgent steps to overhaul schools, the health service, the welfare system and the jobs market.
Continue reading...After being denied their rightful place in this season’s Europa League, Crystal Palace finally have their revenge. In Oliver Glasner’s final match in charge, it was fitting that Jean-Philippe Mateta should score what turned out to be the winning goal after his January move to Milan was scuppered by a failed medical. It has been that kind of season in south London. Having rescued them from the brink of extinction only 16 years ago, how Steve Parish must have relished this occasion.
The Palace chair found himself sitting next to the Uefa president Aleksander Ceferin for the biggest night in their history and he can now start planning for the Europa League campaign that was denied to them as last year’s FA Cup winners were adjudged to have broken European football’s governing body’s rules on multiclub ownership.
Continue reading...Anna Turley gives Reform leader 24 hours to report Russian hacking claim in ‘public and national interest’
The Labour chair has given Nigel Farage 24 hours to report to security services the claim that his phone was hacked by Russia-linked actors or the party will do it for him.
In a letter to the Reform UK leader, Anna Turley said it was “in the public and national interest” to ensure that a suspected overseas hack of a senior politician’s phone by a hostile state was properly investigated.
Continue reading...Across California, ballots sit unopened as voters struggle to decide who to back as their chosen candidate for governor. US senior political correspondent Lauren Gambino tells Kai Wright that the race has been a head-scratcher for Democrats. Despite a huge field of candidates, the race has been mired in scandal and few have managed to cut through. What does this say about the future of the Democratic party, and does this leave an opening for Republicans in the Golden state?
Continue reading...US president calls on US ally to ‘behave … or else we’ll have to blow them up’ in casual aside during cabinet meeting
Donald Trump has threatened to “blow up” Oman if it fails to “behave” in a casual aside during a cabinet meeting, as the US scrambles to reopen the strait of Hormuz.
The US president made the threat after reports of talks between Iran and Oman about jointly charging a toll for ships passing through the crucial waterway, which has been all but closed since the start of the US-Israel war on Iran.
Continue reading...A Tube station in West London used to have a flooding problem. Instead of opting for an expensive reworking of the landscape via reservoir & levee, local officials reintroduced a family of beavers into the area.
The beavers are part of an unlikely effort to bring back a vanished species and help Britain adapt to a very modern problem: climate change.
Britain is famous for drizzle, but climate change is making rainfall heavier and more erratic. Places that didn’t used to flood are now waterlogged. So scientists have enlisted some of the animal kingdom’s best flood engineers — beavers — to help.
In West London, conservationists got a government license to resettle a family of five beavers in a 20-acre urban park near the Greenford Tube station. It used to be a golf course, with a creek running through it. Within weeks, the beavers dammed up the creek, creating a pond that holds water and stops it from spilling into the city. They also diverted the creek’s flow into smaller tributaries, creating a wetland that better absorbs heavy rainfall — mitigating the risk of flooding downstream.
“They effectively turned this site into a giant sponge that can take heavy rainfall and slowly release water back into the landscape, creating a lot more resilience for flooding,” explains Sean McCormack, a local veterinarian who started the Ealing Beaver Project, named for the London borough of Ealing, where it’s located.
The beaver-engineered landscape has attracted other animals, increasing the area’s biodiversity:
“By felling trees, they’ve also opened up the canopy, and we’ve seen an abundance of biodiversity,” McCormack says.
Freshwater shrimp have appeared in the creek, he says, plus eight new species of birds, two types of bats and rare brown hairstreak butterflies, which lay their eggs on blackthorn branches nibbled by beavers.
Tags: beavers · climate crisis · UK · video
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Markus Branse has added a photo to the pool:
Lightning seen from Bicentenniel Park, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
Markus Branse has added a photo to the pool:
Lightning seen from Bicentenniel Park, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
stan.jernigan has added a photo to the pool:
I took this photo of the “Buddhist Hosenji Temple” with my iPhone 17 Pro Max while visiting the “Dotonbori River Shopping Area” in Osaka, Japan. The smoke is from the bundled incense offered in prayers…
stan.jernigan has added a photo to the pool:
I took this photo with my iPhone 17 Pro Max while visiting the “Dotonbori River Shopping Area” in Osaka, Japan. I was intrigued by all the electrical wires connecting across the small, busy street. This is a very busy and bustling area to visit…
on the water photography has added a photo to the pool:
This facility was originally built and famously known as the Kumamoto-Kita Police Station. The Kusabacho building (now the Central Police Station) is globally celebrated for its striking modern design. Designed by the legendary architect Kazuo Shinohara and completed in 1990 under the "Kumamoto Art Polis" initiative, it is often called the "glass police station". The front facade is wrapped entirely in reflective half-mirror glass, utilizing a distinct steel-frame design expanding outward on the upper floors to house a custom martial arts hall.
NEW YORK (ANP/BLOOMBERG) - Aandelen van Meta Platforms waren woensdag in trek onder beleggers op Wall Street. Het moederbedrijf van Facebook en Instagram is begonnen met de verkoop van de eerste consumentenabonnementen voor zijn Meta AI-chatbot. Dat wordt gezien als een belangrijke stap in het opbouwen van een businessmodel dat de honderden miljarden dollars aan investeringen in kunstmatige intelligentie moet compenseren.
De beurswaarde steeg bijna 4 procent. Het Meta AI-abonnement wordt eerst uitgerold in Singapore, Guatemala en Bolivia, met plannen voor meer landen later. Mensen kunnen de Meta AI-chatbot gratis blijven gebruiken voor het genereren van afbeeldingen en video's, maar stuiten bij veelvuldig gebruik dan uiteindelijk op een limiet.
Meta-topman Mark Zuckerberg staat onder druk van beleggers om aan te tonen dat zijn dure gok op AI uiteindelijk significante omzet zal opleveren. Zijn bedrijf is ook al bezig met het testen van premiumabonnementen die exclusieve AI-functies toevoegen aan Facebook, Instagram en WhatsApp.
De belangrijkste graadmeters van de aandelenbeurzen in New York eindigden licht in de plus, terwijl beleggers tegenstrijdige signalen kregen over de vooruitzichten voor een akkoord tussen de Verenigde Staten en Iran om de oorlog in het Midden-Oosten te beëindigen. De Dow Jones-index ging 0,4 procent omhoog naar 50.644,28 punten. De brede S&P 500 sloot een fractie hoger op 7520,36 punten en techbeurs Nasdaq kreeg er 0,1 procent bij op 26.674,73 punten.
President Donald Trump zei dat hij "niet tevreden" was met de onderhandelingen met Iran, wat de verwachtingen voor een op handen zijnd akkoord temperde. De VS ontkenden daarnaast een Iraans mediabericht over een tussentijds conceptakkoord waarin stond dat het scheepvaartverkeer door de Straat van Hormuz binnen een maand na inwerkingtreding weer normaal zou kunnen verlopen. Trump bagatelliseerde ook de mogelijkheid van verlichting van sancties tegen Iran.
Verder wist Boeing de aandacht op zich gericht. De topman van Boeing gaf investeerders een optimistische voorspelling voor dit jaar en daarna, nu de Amerikaanse vliegtuigbouwer de productie van de 737 MAX opvoert, de certificering van lang uitgestelde modellen nadert en een meevaller uit defensie-uitgaven verwacht. Beleggers zetten het aandeel daarop 2,5 procent hoger.